Categories

A few random thoughts on keyboards

I’ve recently been very underwhelmed with the keyboards Apple ships with their computers. They’re trying to make them all feel like laptop keyboards, which is an idea I
rather disapprove of.

In particular the recent Apple Keyboard
has such shallow key travel it’s very easy to fall into the bad habit of pounding the keys, and the overall layout feels squished
and constrained.

I’ve had a couple of the old school model A1408 “Apple Keyboard” (and its wireless cousin) in my drawer for years because I remember
liking them.

Thus far it’s definitely a big improvement over the current squashed and squishy laptop like keyboard, but my gold standard for
keyboards is the Razer Black Widow Ultimate – I use one at work with my
Linux desktop PC and it feels glorious to type on. Beautiful mechanical keys with very distinct tactile feedback and a satisfying
(if perhaps somewhat loud for your officemates 🙂 click.

The original Apple keyboard definitely has a better typing feel but lacks the tactile feedback of the Razor or other modern
mechanical keyboards making the typing feel still come off a bit squishy for my tastes.

I may end up investigating other modern mechanical keyboards to replace them – we’ll see. One irritation I have with the Razor is
that they’re platform specific. Is there REALLY any good reason for this other than to try to get me to shell out another $100 for
yet another keyboard? I rather resent that as other brands seem to cope just fine in both platforms.

UPDATE 02/22/2016

I ended up buying a Das mechanical keyboard for home, and thus far it’s made me appreciate my Razer Black Widow even more.

It’s not that anything is particularly bad at all about the Das, it’s a perfectly fine mechanical keyboard, I just prefer the
more ‘clicky’ feel of the Razer, and really appreciate the niceties like the lit, labeled keys.

As it turns out, choosing the Das with no labels on the keys has turned into an enormous pain. I touch type fairly well, but
even still when I occasionally need to press some fairly arcane sequence of keys (Yes I DO need to hit Alt+F15 occasionally :))
the lack of labels really rains on my parade.

There’s also the little tidbit that occasionally you might want your spouse or other friend who doesn’t touch type be able to use
your keyboard and they simply won’t be able to do it. At all.